PROVIDENCE - Governor Chafee says he does “not rejoice in violence,” but recognizes that the death of Osama bin Laden will probably bring solace and some closure to the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center

By Katherine Gregg | | Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE - Governor Chafee says he does "not rejoice inviolence," but recognizes that the death of Osama bin Laden willprobably bring solace and some closure to the families of thevictims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centerand the Pentagon.

Asked how he viewed the death of bin Laden at the hands of theU.S. military and CIA in light of his oft-stated opposition to thedeath penalty, he said: "When you are at war, it is a littledifferent from [an] assassination. We're at war....

"It all started with September 11 and going after theperpetrators.... I have been in favor of that."

But when asked if he believed the military had, in fact, gottenthe man responsible for 9/11, he said, "there were flaws" in hismind in the after-the-fact investigation by the 9/11 Commission:"That's the first step - and I say that in my book - that's thefirst step after a tragedy: have a commission to find out whathappened on September 11, and we haven't really had one."

"This is a complicated area in which the Bush administration hada 9/11 commission that tried to figure out exactly what happened,who was responsible, but that commission has been widelycriticized, and so, exactly who was responsible - just because wesay it was bin Laden - I am sure there were others that wereresponsible also."

In a wide-ranging interview, Chafee also pointed to his own"prophetic" attempts to draw more attention to Pakistan as apossible hiding place for bin Laden in the book Chafee wrote afterleaving the U.S. Senate, and in a conversation he had with theonce-unnamed - but now identified - Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistaniopposition leader and former prime minister, who was assassinatedin a December 2007 bomb attack as she was leaving a politicalrally.

On pages 114-115 of his book, "Against the Tide," Chafee talksabout a moment during a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committeein which a State Department official was testifying "in sonoroustones on the hunt for bin Laden. I nudged Senator Chuck Hagel andsaid, 'Have they checked the apartment next to Musharraf's?' "

A few paragraphs along, he writes about sharing this samescenario with political opponents of then-military leader PervezMusharraf in one of the delegations of Pakistani officials he metin his role as chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee onthe Middle East and South Asia.

As reported in his book, he posed the question then: "Was theman who had slaughtered nearly three thousand people on September11 really hiding in a cave on a mountainous border betweenAfghanistan and Pakistan, or was he sipping tea out of a silver cupin the apartment next to Musharraf's."

In his next paragraph, he wrote: "The political passions of myvisitors were unleashed, with great animation. 'Of course there's adeal! We all know that's true.' "

In his book, Chafee suggests a go-along-to-get-along dealbetween the Pakistan government and al-Qaida.

In light of the events of recent days, Chafee said Tuesday: "Whocalled it? Who called it?"

Chafee added his own voice to those of other governorscommenting on bin Laden's death, and the ensuing question: howcould the leaders of Pakistan not know that bin Laden was hidingout in what has been described as a mansion blocks from thenational military academy that is Pakistan's equivalent of WestPoint.

The full title of Chafee's book, published in 2008 by ThomasDunne Books, is: "Against the Tide: How a Compliant CongressEmpowered a Reckless President."